The Salt Building

The Salt Building was renovated and brought to life for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics by Vancouver Salt Company, a consortium of heritage-award-winning companies: Haebler Construction, Acton Ostry Architects and Citysphere. The City of Vancouver-owned Salt Building underwent a major restoration in its transformation from a 1930s era dilapidated salt refinery to a fully functioning and beautiful recreation space for athletes in the Olympic Vancouver during the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games.

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The Salt Building is a very significant landmark in the Southeast False Creek neighborhood. It is a heritage listed building located in the heart of the community on the NW corner of First Avenue and Manitoba Street.

The Salt Building, which was built around 1930 to refine raw salt and converted in the 1980s as a paper recycling plant, has sat empty for a number of recent years. The building is owned by the City of Vancouver.

The Salt Building is interesting for a variety of reasons: its history; its location, which marks the original shoreline of False Creek; the fact that it is built on exposed timber piles; and its large, open interior, which is supported by elaborate roof trusses.

The City has completed a foundation upgrade and constructed a basement at the north end of the building. Through a competitive RFP process, The Vancouver Salt Company (VSC), a consortium comprised of Citysphere Project Management, Acton Ostry Architects, Haebler Construction, and Mark James Group, was selected to rehabilitate and re-use the structure. The building had been raised and the shell upgraded for VANOCs use as a social gathering place for the 2010 Winter and Paralympic Games. Following the Olympics, the tenant improvements by the VSC will now see the building used as a bakery, coffee shop, restaurant and brewpub.